EFT Case Story: Toothache Tapping

Tony Leake, an EFT Master Practitioner student from the UK, shows the importance of focusing on the very source of pain for maximum effectiveness in this interesting case story.

Tonny writes: Linda is a regular practice partner, and on this occasion we had arranged a extra session as she had a severe toothache.

When she arrived, the first thing I noticed was that she was not smiling which is unusual, and she was continually probing the inside of her mouth with her tongue...

I explained to her that before we would discuss the pain we would de-stress as we always do.

We began by tapping 2 rounds, the first simply on stress, and the second on EFTeam as we always do.

I asked her about the pain, she told me that it was severe and keeping her awake at night, and rated it at -4. I asked her if she had contacted her dentist and she had made an appointment. He had suggested using medical alcohol as mouthwash which she had been doing for 24 hours and had helped a lot and had taken the pain from around -6 to -2. Our session was by skype at 5.30 am so she had not used the mouthwash today and so the pain was worse again.

I asked her to describe the pain and she said a dull ache. We began by tapping on a dull ache in my tooth, top right, 3rd from the back with a dull ache as a reminder phrase.

This brought no change at all, so we repeated. After this round, again there was no change in that tooth, but she said there was an echo in the tooth below it, so we tapped on echo in thelower tooth.

This made the echo go away but the there was no change in the top tooth. We tapped on the dull ache again, and as we did, I encouraged her to feel healing energy flowing to the tooth. I focused all my attention on the tooth and in my mind I re-affirmed my intention to help her increase her energy flow, but still there was no change.

I was a little unsure what to do, so I planned to try another round on stress and then try again, but before I could suggest this she said, that she didn't know if it was significant but the tooth is a crownnot a natural tooth. We talked about this a little and she remembered that the dentist killed the nerve before applying the crown. So I asked her to check if the pain is actually in the tooth or somewhere else.

After probing for a while she said that actually the pain was in the gum.

That felt good to me, I sensed a change in her and suddenly I felt like we were making progress, more energized and ready to move forward as quickly we could.

She said it felt like there was an infection in her gum and maybe the dentist had said that, although she couldn't really be sure.

We tapped on infection in my gum, she seemed to do this round more slowly and more deliberate than the previous rounds and seemed to want to tap longer on the karate chop point so I asked herto repeat the reminder phrase on this point and afterwards she said that it had eased slightly, the pain had shifted by half a point and that the gum no longer felt swollen, even though she didn't realize before that it had.

I asked her how she felt about the pain and she said that it felt that her tooth was shouting, "listen to me, me!", and that she just wanted it to be quiet.

We tapped on "listen to me, me" with just "me, me" as the reminder phrase. This made her laugh and she was very theatrical with way she repeated the phrase.

The pain was now improving and was currently at -2 so I asked her what she would like to tap on now and she said healthy gum.

We tapped on that which took the pain to -0.5. I asked her how she felt now, and she said that her tooth should be grateful for all of the attention we are giving it, so we tapped on that too which took it to 0.

I asked her how we could make her mouth feel even better and she said that she couldn't understand how it could feel better than no pain so we tapped on feeling good mouth, followed again by healthy mouth.

She said that she found it difficult to put a number on it as it didn't make sense to her, but that her mouth felt good. We were both running short on time so we finished as we always do bycalling out different kinds of energy until we were both energized.

To close the session I reminded her that energy work does not cure either pain or the cause of physical pain but what we can do is to change the relationship with the pain. I reminded her tokeep using the mouthwash and to keep her appointment with the dentist even if the pain was still not there. 4 hours later and she reports that her mouth is still feeling good.

Further updates: After 24 hours later she had no pain at all, she felt the visit to the dentist unnecessary although is going anyway 'just to get a check up'.

After 1 week, and the day before the dentist appointment, she reported that she was feeling discomfort that comes and goes but that she is not suffering with it at all.

I have experienced relief of physical pain first hand, admittedly by using a combination of tapping and positive thinking. I had had a pain in my shoulder for 6/7 months, it was diagnosed by two physical conditions.

Impingement syndrome and osteoarthritis, I had been working with a chiropractor for a long time trying hard not to have the cortisone injections my doctor wanted me to.In the end my chiropractor said, just go and get the injections I can't help you any further with this. I discovered EFT and changed the way that I thought about the pain, within a week it was lessening.Within 3 it had gone, and despite the fact the the arthritis does not go away (physically), it has never bothered me since, occasional slight twinge but nothing more.

This forces me to ask the question, how much physical pain is there really? Osteoarthritis is bits of bone physically rubbing together, how can that hurt one day and not the next. Toothache andgum infections are real physical conditions, but how can we stop them hurting with 45 minutes of tapping, and for the pain to not come back. I do not know the answer but I have a theory. The physical body has a problem, and gives us pain to warn us. We don't like the pain, so this causes an energy body event, and as we know events cause echoes. So could it be as simple as ongoing pain can be be echoes of the original pain, and we can tap them away as easily as we can any other echoes? What an exiting thing that would be.

To use a metaphor, we all carry on our back a rucksack and every time somebody upsets us and we do not let it go, we put a rock in the rucksack. Every upset, every disappointment, every heartbreak, every negative thought that we hold about ourself, others or situations equals another rock. As we go through life this rucksack just gets heavier and heavier, out heart becomes heavy with it, we become negative, disillusioned and pessimistic. I can help you find the rocks and show you how to let them go. This makes people feel better, more positive, more alive and better equipped to deal with life - kind of a detox for your spirit.

I am happy to conduct sessions in person in Worksop Nottinghamshire or worldwide by Skype.

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